Hi, I'm currently doing my Dip. of Financial Services (Financial Planning) and it's pretty straightforward. Just be sure to read the questions carefully as there will be some traps more than tricks with them. All the best for the exam.

Assuming you are doing your studies through Kaplan Education, the exams should be pretty easy as they are all open book. At least 95% of the answers can be found in the study materials themselve. So it is a matter of understanding the materials first and then recognising where to look for specific info when there is a need from the questions.

I agree with ASF, READ THE QUESTIONS CAREFULLY. There are plenty of traps in them. Otherwise, I agree it is quite straightforward. Good luck.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never heard of this PS146 exam. Maybe like others have stated you mean the exams to get your DFP. True story (I love telling it, as it shows how ridiculous our Finance Cops are):

Rang ASIC one time when I was studying asking them what the necessary qualification for PS146 was (I just assumed that it was the DFP) and where could I find the legislation on the ASIC site and if not there, could he point me to it. Had the guy on the other end tell me that they (ASIC) didn't have a set standard for PS146 compliance, that it was generally up to the Dealer Group and it could mean any number of variations, depending on how strict the dealer group wanted to be. I'm not joking, that's what he actually told me.

So anyway, a few months later I rang back, spoke to another person and asked the same question and GOT EXACTLY THE SAME ANSWER. Have not had a skerrick of trust in ASIC ever since.

I'm not sure about the first two. Though it was odd for someone to name a business on something that keeps on getting a name change (originally Interim Policy Statements (IPS) then Policy Statements (PS) and now Regulatory Guides (RG), it probably be called something different in another 5 years).

I can only tell you about Kaplan. Kaplan bought the Financial Planning Association's (FPA) Diploma in Financial Planning (DFP) which was originally 8 subjects. The FPA wanted to focus on member services...Strangely enough a year or two after selling the Diploma course to Kaplan they decided to get Securities Institute of Australia / Financial Services Institute of Australasia (SIA/FinSIA) to distribute the Certified Financial Planner (CFP R) due to "costs" and again wanting to focus on member services.

A few years ago the Australian Institute of Banking and Finance (AIBF) decided to "merge" with SIA/FinSIA due to their (AIBF) rising costs of membership. AIBF did offer some sort of Diploma in Banking before merging with FinSIA.

Anyway, Kaplan were offering the Diplomas relating to real estate and financial planning and SIA/FinSIA were offering the Graduate Diploma courses and CFP courses. FinSIA realised that courier costs get quite expensive and also wanted to focus on "member services".

In the end (now), Kaplan decided to buy FinSIA education for a pretty penny (I think from memory $20m or $30m). Kaplan is the most well known for financial education now because of having both financial planning and financial services courses from both the FPA and FinSIA. The below excerpt gives you an idea of the size of Kaplan (it's a Gorilla in education terms!)

"Kaplan Professional is part of Kaplan Inc., a leading global provider of educational services to individuals, schools and businesses. Kaplan serves over one million students with operations in more than 30 countries around the world. Its international programs include higher education, test preparation, language instruction and professional training. Kaplan, Inc., with 2007 revenue of $2 billion, is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO - News). For more information, visit www.kaplan.com."

Before some genius (whether ASIC or AQF) decided to dumb down the course to 4 subjects from 8 subjects and to an open book exam which we all now fondly call Diploma of Financial Services. There are multiple streams available in the DFS, you can do mortgage broking, financial markets, financial planning, banking, etc.

I remember doing DFP1 and DFP2 and it wasn't an open textbook or multiple choice answers.